Documents from the City of Toronto Core Services Review for the Standing Committee on Community Development and Recreation

Excerpts from Appendix A, Part 2: KPMG Standing Committee Summary, Community Development and Recreation:

Key opportunities:

- The subsidies for 2,000 spaces that no longer receive provincial support could be reduced or eliminated. Phasing out may be necessary to manage the impact on families.

- The child care centres operated directly by the City could be converted to non-profit or private operation to reduce costs. Care would be needed to ensure the needs of special needs children are met, and to ensure active spaces remain properly distributed.

- The system will also require adjustments as full day kindergarten is implemented, and these changes can be designed with the above changes in mind.

- The quality assessments of subsidized child care spaces could be eliminated, leaving the provincial licencing system to regulate program quality.

- Some or all of the "Child Care Funding and Subsidies" costs could be eliminated. The largest part of this is wage subsidies tied to pay equity determinations. If may take some time and a clear strategy to eliminate this obligation.

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Related readings:

Early childhood education and care in Toronto: Funding the future, by Martha Friendly for Toronto Children's Services, 2011
"I should have applied before I was pregnant": How child care in Toronto fails mothers, final report of the Mothers' Task Force on Child Care, 2011
If it don't make dollars, does that mean that it don't make sense? Commercial, nonprofit and municipal child care in the city of Toronto. A report to the Children's Services Division, City of Toronto by Gordon Cleveland, 2008